More Australian Electoral Rolls on Ancestry

Ancestry seems to have added more Australian electoral rolls onto ancestry.com.au without any great fanfare. At least, if there was one I missed it, and I didn’t get an update about it. They now cover the period from 1903 to 1954, although the coverage isn’t complete, nor is it the same for each state.

Here is the list, blatantly cut-and-pasted from their website.

State and Years Presently Included:

This database currently includes electoral rolls for the following states and years. Those marked by asterisk have been indexed. Others are image-only.

I did a test drive of a roll without going through the index. My Eason family was in Blayney until the mid-1950s, so I went searching for them in the 1954 roll. I know from searching previously for an earlier period that they were likely to be in the Commonwealth Division of Macquarie, State Division of Bathurst, Blayney Subdivision, so I went searching there first. I know that boundaries change over the years but you have to start somewhere and I started there.

I selected New South Wales, then 1954, then MacQuarie (as spelled by Ancestry). I then selected Bathurst, and E for the initial of my ancestor.

The page that came up was for the Subdivision of Bathurst, which I didn’t notice, so I then went back and searched for other divisions and subdivisions. Eventually I noticed that there were a number of pages for each selection, so I went back to Bathurst and there were 4 pages, of which I was on the first one. I moved on to page 2, which was still Bathurst, but page 3 was Blayney. There they were!

1954 Electoral Roll Macquarie Division Blayney Subdivision

You can see it’s not a brilliant image. I’ve also cropped the black border around the image. The surnames don’t quite disappear into the binding on the right hand page, although on other pages they do. Still, it’s available on your subscription at home, if you have one, or at your library, if you don’t, without looking at microfiche, which aren’t indexed either.

Comments

Just came across your website as I’m looking to do some more NSW research on my family. I’ve been focusing on England research up until now. Thanks for the tip about these Electoral rolls in Ancestry. I’ll jump in and have a look.

trying to find out my couson family i know he marred Doreen kilmarten some
time back
thank you

I was born in Sydney and grew up in country NSW. I've lived in Sydney since leaving school and starting university. My mother is the descendant of farmers and graziers on her father's side, and professionals on her mother's; and my father is a South Sea Islander. Read More…